


Love Triangle Geometry

by genteelrebel



Category: The Grand Tour (TV) RPF, Top Gear (UK) RPF
Genre: AU: James was single and Richard and Jeremy long divorced when relationship began, Angst and Fluff and Smut, Established Relationship, Implied/Referenced Homophobia, M/M, OT3, Stream of Consciousness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-14
Updated: 2017-12-14
Packaged: 2019-02-14 20:24:44
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,094
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13015464
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/genteelrebel/pseuds/genteelrebel
Summary: On the tenth anniversary of his and Jeremy’s and Richard’s sexual relationship, James is forced to wonder why EVERYONE isn’t part of a romantic threesome.  Smut with a large side order of philosophy and angst, and a big helping of schmoop for dessert.





	Love Triangle Geometry

**Author's Note:**

  * For [liz_mo](https://archiveofourown.org/users/liz_mo/gifts).



> Oh, good heavens, I have committed RPS. I suspect if you’re reading at all you already know this, but just in case: this story is a work of fan fiction based on real people. All the situations, conversations, relationships, thoughts and feelings depicted within it are solely the product of my own overly fertile mind.

_“I wish that it was clear to me_  
_Love triangle geometry_  
_But in the end, it’s just a mystery._ ”

The Indigo Girls, “Fill It Up Again”

 

Once upon a time, during the very earliest years of his adulthood...back when James was still the family black sheep, making no use of his musical education and completely unable to hold any job for long…James had accepted an invitation to spend Christmas week with the family of a friend, on the theory that it would simply be less awkward than spending it at home.  And he’d been right; it had.  Or at least, it had right up until the big family dinner on Christmas Day.  That’s when James had first made the acquaintance of his mate’s older brother’s new girlfriend, a rabidly conservative young lady who Held Definite Views. 

James still wasn’t entirely sure how the subject of homosexuality had come up.  He rather thought that there had been some kind of major demonstration for AIDS research in the news the week before, although he’d never understood just why that meant the “sinful homosexual lifestyle” of many of the protesters had to be talked about over dinner.  Because honestly, why should people who allegedly believed that sex was a private and sacred matter be so willing to discuss the rest of the world’s perversions at the family table at all?  Let alone on Christmas Day?  But there had been much discussion of it during the meal anyway.  And when the younger generation had been banished downstairs to amuse themselves while the older folks reminisced and drank tea, the Young Lady With Views hadn’t hesitated to make her views known. “…and I heard one of those demonstrators on the news actually trying to claim that homosexuality is _natural_ ,” she’d said, shaking her head in disgust.  “Can you believe that? I mean, even if you don’t read the Bible, all you have to do is _look._ God clearly designed us so that ONE man could be with ONE woman.  That’s just the way the parts are made to fit.”  Here she had made a circle with the thumb and forefinger of one hand and mimed fucking it with the thumb of the other, much to the scandalized hilarity of her audience.  “I mean, sex just doesn’t work in any other way.  Am I right?”

Now, James had mostly been inhabiting another reality altogether while the young lady held court on the couch.  His mind had pretty much been divided into three equal parts: he'd been busily designing a new kind of harpsichord with one third, reliving the lovely blow job he’d given his very male mate the night before with a second, and wondering wistfully just when he was going to be able to sneak outside for a fag with the final third.  But when the young lady said this, a hitherto completely unsuspected fourth portion of James’s mind had suddenly spoken up.  It wasn’t his inner smart-ass—really, it wasn’t.  Rather, it was James’s inner teacher, the one who couldn’t stand to hear any kind of misinformation spread without at least attempting to correct it.  “Short of test tubes and such, that’s the only way sex works for procreation, yes,” James had heard himself say reasonably.  “But there are so many other ways to combine body parts for fun, you know.  And most of them feel just as good.”  And then he’d promptly frozen, as his friend stared at him, and the words seemed to ring around the suddenly all-too-quiet room.

Today, James could admit that he’d gotten lucky.  His comment could have been the prelude to an all-out verbal war.  Or possibly even a grilling about his own sexual preferences and practices--which would have been awkward in the extreme, especially with his decidedly closeted mate sitting nearby, sinking lower and lower into the couch. But the young lady had merely pursed her lips, looked James over from head to foot, and raised her hand in laughing protest.  “Oh, God,” she said, rolling her eyes humorously.  “ _Please_ don’t tell me what you mean by that, James. I really, really don’t want to know.” 

The company’s laughter had bridged the awkward moment, and the conversation had gone on.  After a few panicked moments of wondering if he’d branded himself as James May, Sex Pervert, amongst his friend’s relatives for all time…and then deciding that said people were all remote enough from his real life that he didn’t really have to care…James was completely ignored once again.  He went back to his harpsichord design and his sexual daydreams in peace. 

But about a week later, when he was safely back in his own flat, James looked into his shaving mirror one morning and heard the young woman’s comments echoing through his mind once again, realizing afresh just how much they had bothered him.  And not just because of the obvious bigotry and unconscious cruelty toward his mate.  James already gotten used to the way most of the people in his world treated people with his preferences, and had come to peace with it, at least as much as anyone could.  No.  Mostly it was the young woman’s sheer ignorance that stuck in his mind…an ignorance that struck James as very, very sad, something far more to be grieved over than angry about.  It was truly tragic that at that late point in the twentieth century, any woman could grow to adulthood honestly believing that male/female vaginal intercourse was “the only way sex worked.”  Without being attracted to her in any way, James still sincerely mourned for the girl, for all the joy and pleasure she must have missed.  And would always miss, as long as she “really, really” didn’t want to know about anything different… 

Thirty years later, James experiences a similar feeling every time he closes the front door of his house, locking Jeremy, Richard and himself inside and the rest of the big wide world most emphatically out.  It isn’t that James doesn’t feel happy when he turns those locks—he does.  He always feels joyful, profoundly grateful that he gets to have something most of the world is simply too blind to even see as a possibility. 

But it always makes him feel profoundly sad, as well.

***

It has gotten much, much better, over the last few decades.  Nowadays, most of the world no longer seems shocked at all by the thought of two men in love.  In fact, cultural attitudes toward homosexuality have improved _so_ much that every now and again one or another of them will actually half-suggest coming out of closet.  But they all know they won't ever actually do it.  Because while most of the world no longer raises an eyebrow over  _two_ men being in love, it would definitely still be stunned by _three_.  And while sometimes one of them will speak wistfully of just one pair of them coming out, of holding a wedding or some other public commitment so at least the world knows the truth about two-thirds of them even if it isn’t ready to know about all three, they all know that really isn’t an option, either.  For better or worse, three they are, and if the universe is good, three they will always be.  Secrecy is really a very small price to pay.

Truthfully, James doesn’t mind the secrecy that much.  He’s always been an intensely private person.  And how could he ever regret being with both Jeremy and Richard, when that ‘for better or worse’ has so often simply been ‘for the better’?  James has no regrets, absolutely none for himself.  And only a few for Jeremy and just a few more for Richard, who he knows would really like to wear their rings for all to see. 

But James does sometimes feel intensely sorry for the rest of the world.  Because really, being a part of a romantic threesome just makes _so much sense._

It’s simple geometry, after all, James thinks tonight as begins taking his ritual walk through the house, drawing all the curtains, making sure all the windows and doors are securely latched.  Just ask any teacher of secondary school maths.  The only shape two points can make is a straight line—and what is a line, really?  Such a boring thing it only exists in one dimension, and almost entirely useless unless it helps to make up something else.  It’s amazingly fragile, too.  All it takes is one point of disconnection—one snip of a pair of scissors from the greater three dimensional world—and the bond between the two points is severed with baffling ease.  As Jeremy and Richard, both divorced long before their threesome affair began, can attest.

But add a third point, and…ah.  Suddenly your line becomes a triangle.  One dimension becomes two.  And the entire universe expands. 

Tonight, for instance, on this tenth anniversary of the very first time all three of them made love, James already knows exactly where his two co-presenters are.  Impatient with his slowness, they will have made their way to the bedroom, where they are almost certainly already engaged in some fervent foreplay. James can see them clearly in his mind’s eye, even as he plods through his home pedantically turning off lights.  He doesn’t think either man will be naked yet, but it won’t due to any lack of enthusiasm.  Jeremy, ever hungry for the feel of Richard’s skin, will have stripped the younger man’s shirt off the moment they crossed the threshold, and undoubtedly Richard will at least have unbuttoned Jeremy’s in return.  James highly doubts they will gotten any further than that, though.   Jeremy, impatient with need, will have crushed the half-naked Richard to him and started snogging him passionately, far too intent on merging mouth-to-mouth and chest-to-chest to bother with any of their other clothing lower down.  Unless Richard’s need tonight is even greater, and he’s already kneeling at Jeremy’s feet, rubbing his cheek against Jeremy’s jeans.  Either way, by the time James finally does walk through the bedroom door, they will be completely wrapped up in each other.  An outsider might think that they don’t need James at all.

But James is not an outsider.  He hasn’t been for a very long time.  And so he knows that the moment he crosses that threshold, they will know that he has joined them.  He doesn’t even have to clear his throat anymore, or make his footsteps abnormally loud…just his normal light tread on his worn hallway carpet will be enough.  Because Jeremy and Richard will be waiting for him, wanting, anticipating his presence just as much as he’s been anticipating theirs.  No matter what they’re doing, they’ll stop.  Their eyes will open.  They’ll look at him. 

James will look back. 

The heat in the room will double.

And the entire universe will expand.

***

So. If the so-called “love triangle” is such a logical and versatile shape, why has Western culture spent so many centuries demonizing it?

As Richard growls “It’s about bloody time” and pounces on James… ah, it seemed that Jeremy had enough patience to at least start on Richard’s trousers before he succumbed to kissing him tonight, since Richard’s belt has been undone and half pulled free, ridiculously large fashion-statement buckle flapping comically against his thigh…James decides that bilateral symmetry is to blame.  It’s not much of a mental jump from secondary school maths to secondary school biology, after all, and James had once been fascinated by those early lectures.  He can still remember the way his teacher explained that human beings, like all mammals, could be divided into matching, symmetrical parts along one plane only--unlike flowers, say, or sea anemones, which can be divided along many.  And so human beings as a species tended to have identical features from side to side.  But not from top to bottom or front to back.

It is, James thinks as Richard’s hands slide around his back and his lips turn upward, hungrily seeking his, an evolutionary quirk that has had quite far-reaching social consequences.  It means that most humans are born with two eyes…but they can only see in one direction.  Two arms…but they can only really do things efficiently when reaching forward, never back.  Two lips…but those lips only make up one mouth, and that mouth, too, is only located only on one side, the same side that favors the equally directionally-biased eyes and arms.  If, like the View-Filled Young Lady, one was tempted to see evidence of God’s Plan in the way human bodies were formed, it made sense to assume that He only intended man to have one lover at a time.  Otherwise, He would have made it much easier to kiss two people at once. 

(James had given kissing both Jeremy and Richard at once a serious trial, back when all this had just begun, and they had all been so much younger.  He’d pulled both of their heads in close and just gone for it… Richard’s face pressed up tight against his left cheek and Jeremy’s against his right, Richard and Jeremy’s own right and left cheeks pressed together as James tried desperately to cover both sets of beloved lips with his own.  It hadn’t worked very well.  If they smashed in close enough to really kiss, their noses smashed as well, quickly denying them the ability to breath.  A similar thing had happened the one time they’d all tried to frot their cocks together in a similar position…although then it had been their stomachs rather than their noses getting in the way, James’s and especially Jeremy’s.  James was secretly convinced that _somewhere_ in the world there was a favored male threesome with the anatomy such an arrangement would work for, and if they’d all been built like Richard, perhaps it would have been them.  As it was…well, no.  Just no.  And the attempt had been so embarrassing that James could easily imagine their ancient forefathers making such sexual acts taboo, just to avoid the mortification.)

So it couldn’t be denied that there was a certain biological logic against sexual threesomes.  It was, after all, next to impossible for three lovers to touch each other front-to-front simultaneously, and the front side was generally where most of the fun bits were held to be.  But it was…as Jeremy now reminds James with almost painful clarity, as the taller man steps in behind him and tenderly runs his fingers down the backs of James’s arms…flawed logic.  Because everyone has a back as well as a front.  And touching back-to-front was lots of fun, too.  Sometimes, it was even more intimate.

Like now.

It’s not just the potential threat/promise of what Jeremy still persists in calling “bum sex” that makes it intimate, although that’s definitely there.  Jeremy is already rigid beneath his jeans, and he’s pressing that hardness against James’s still-clothed ass with unabashed frankness.  But the intimacy comes more from simply having him there at all.  From allowing Jeremy to come up on James’s blind side, from trusting the larger man to touch and pleasure and love all the parts of himself James only ever sees awkwardly in mirrors, or on camera.  James both shivers with cold and shimmers with fever as Jeremy moves in closer, his lips surprisingly gentle on James’s neck; Richard’s forceful, almost bruising kiss instantly gentles too, as if he, too, can somehow sense Jeremy’s reverence.  Perhaps he can.  They were all able to read each other’s minds while filming by the end of that first series together, after all, long before any of them had ever done anything more than dream of doing this. It really shouldn’t be so surprising that the skill transferred.  

And transfer it did.  When both men break away from James at the same moment, James doesn’t even have to open his eyes to know that Richard is looking up at Jeremy questioningly, and he certainly doesn’t need to see Jeremy’s answering wolfish grin to know it’s there.  He’s not really startled when Jeremy’s foot strikes out and kicks the bedroom door closed.  And even less surprised when the two of them suddenly tumble him onto the bed.

***

The geometric shape of the love triangle has many advantages outside of the bedroom, of course.  Stability, as aforementioned, is one of the nicest.  If something happens that might break two of them apart…if the wicked world should decide to use its scissors…they don’t really separate.  There’s always that third person, still binding them together.  Ready to argue and cajole and even kick the warring two’s backsides if necessary, if that’s what it takes to make them settle their differences.

More than once, it has.

This, James sometimes thinks, is the real reason why they’ve lasted so long.  None of them has ever irrevocably angered more than one of the other two at the same time.  There’s always been a cooler head around, someone who’d fight to keep them connected long enough for the strained bond to mend.  Oh, Jeremy had once tried to turn his back on both James and Richard, during The Fracas and its aftermath…but neither Richard nor James would let him get away with it.  The two of them together were an irresistible force not even Jeremy Clarkson could resist.  And so even that storm had passed.  With the end result that, as with all besieged and tested things, their triangle had ended up being even stronger than ever before. 

It’s a stability that benefits far more than just the three of them.  Everyone they love also shares in it, especially Richard’s and Jeremy’s kids.  Not that any of the children know that their dads are fucking.  They all talked about it long and hard the week Jeremy’s eldest came of age, and decided in the end that the responsible thing was to keep that aspect of their relationship entirely to themselves.  Being forced to hide a scandal of that magnitude was a burden no one deserved, especially not a youngster just beginning to live her own life.  But even with their private secret, they’ve all been part of each other’s families publicly for years.  And for the most part this has been so successful that James, once again, has to wonder why it’s not a more common pattern.  Why _doesn’t_ the whole world form threesomes to raise kids?

James can still remember the collective hand-wringing that happened during the late 1980s, when even the most die-hard social conservative finally had to admit that it was no longer possible to raise a child well with just one parent working outside the home.  Most households needed two steady incomes just to afford the basics.  James knows that the situation has just gotten worse during the decades since.  So how much more logical, then, would it be to raise a family as a trio?  With _three_ parents all working and contributing their income to the children’s care? 

Of course, nowadays, money is the least of Jeremy and Richard’s concerns when it comes to their progeny.  And neither one has ever asked James to contribute in a financial way to any of their spawn, although years ago James did privately set up trust funds in his will for each of them, just in case.   Nonetheless, as ‘Uncle James’ he has always contributed in other ways:  from diaper changing and airplane-noise accompanied feedings during the early years to O-level tutoring and my-date-got-drunk-and-left-me-stranded rescues later on.  Recently, James’s role has mostly devolved into just being a sympathetic ear, the one grown and nearly-grown children all turn to whenever “Dad just wouldn’t understand”—but it’s still important.  Maybe it’s even more important than the airplane feedings had been.  And once, in a fit of late night honesty following a scary incident of chest pain, Jeremy had said that if his heart ever did give out in the middle of filming god-knew-where, it comforted him greatly to know that his kids wouldn’t just have their mom to keep them out of trouble.  They’d always have James and Richard looking after them, too. 

It’s hard, frankly, not to see the “family values” in that.

But of course, their particular triangle’s stability supports far more than just their families.  Sometimes James terrifies himself by trying to reckon up exactly how many people’s livelihoods depend on their show now, just how many crew members and production folks need the three of them to keep on being the three them just so they can continue to feed their own kids.  He generally stops counting when the number reaches triples digits.  It’s a fearsome responsibility, one the young James never really wanted or expected.  On bad days, it seems like one he’s destined to fail.

But…again…he’s not in it by himself.  The other two are always with him, balancing him, keeping him strong.  To expand upon the geometric metaphor, it was as if the three of them had formed the triangular base of what has now grown into a very large geodesic dome.  One large enough to shelter a good deal of other people inside it. 

Even as it rolls down the hill of the world like a juggernaut.

***

James knows this isn’t the anniversary any of them wanted.  The vague plans they’d made months ago to escape to someplace warm and private had quickly evaporated as the actual date drew near.  Commitments scheduled months and sometimes years in advance simply couldn’t be ignored, and it’s not like any of them could say “Oi, mate, give me a break, it’s my tenth anniversary” when their relationship was so ruthlessly clandestine.  Tomorrow, they will all have to get up at a ridiculously early hour, and then they will all go their separate ways…for weeks, this time.  James counted up, and it will be a full seventeen days before the three of them will be in the same room again.  So for now, this one night is all they get.  Just a handful of hours, really, before their alarms go off and they are forced once again to face the World Outside.

It’s more than enough.

 “God, James.  You’re so…god.”  Richard is shaking his head, looking down at James with a mixture of awe and tenderness. “Ten years, mate.  Ten fucking years.  And sometimes I still can’t believe we get to have you like this...”

Richard’s words are like a live wire to James’s heart, affecting him even more than the erotic feeling of Jeremy’s mouth on his skin, hungrily kissing a path from James’s bare chest down to the very evident bulge in his jeans.  The two of them had made short, efficient work of stripping off James’s shirt and shoes once they’d tumbled him into bed, but they’d chosen to leave him in his jeans, and, of course, the pants he’d worn underneath.  It’s a double layer James is painfully aware of as he squirms now, hard cock rubbing against the maddening combo of shifting cotton and unyielding denim.  More than anything, he wants to reach down and ease the pressure—even undoing just one strategic button would be a relief.  He can’t, though.  Richard is half-lying over him on his right, firmly pressing both of James’s wrists into the pillow over his head.  And Jeremy, on his left, has thrown one of his ridiculously long legs over James’s, effectively countering any move James might try to make. 

It's all good, though.  While the building pressure in his groin is maddening, it’s maddening only in the best of ways.  James knows that Richard will continue to keep his arms pinned while Jeremy plays, and while James may struggle with him a little just to feel his strength, he won’t truly try to get away.  Why would he?  While the hint of force gives their lovemaking just enough of an edge to make James writhe, he knows Richard doesn’t really want to make him do anything he doesn’t want to do.  Mostly, he’s just letting James know that he and Jeremy have decided to make him the center of attention for tonight.  To put him in the middle and keep him there, not even let him think about sliding away.  And with that, James is more than content.

Ten years ago, he hadn’t known how it would work.  Not yet clued in to the mystic emotional stability of the triangle, he’d worried that two of them would pair off in bed, and the third person would be left simply to watch and masturbate alone.  He’d been fairly convinced he knew exactly who that third person would be, too.  He’d had visions of it being like being at school all over again, wistfully watching the cool kids eating lunch from a corner of the cafeteria, only about a thousand times lonelier and more painful.  It was only his incredible love for the other two men and…James could admit it, now…his pathetic need to take whatever scraps he was offered that had made him agree to join Jeremy and Richard at all.  To think that having that little of them was better than having nothing at all.

God. No, he really hadn’t understood how it worked.

Because the truly magical thing about having three people in the same bed was this:  _somebody was always in the middle._ Now, exactly which person this was varied.  They all took their turns, divvying up the privilege in an instinctive sort of way they never really had to discuss.  But whoever that middle person was, he was always the focus of the outlying two…something that had a certain mathematical inevitability, now that James came to consider it.  If you took a triangle and somehow subjected it to a gravitational field—which should be impossible in a two dimensional plane, but never mind that for now--what would happen?  Two points would fall to the bottom, forming the base.  And they’d raise the third up the high.

As Jeremy begins to mouth wetly at James’s cock through his jeans, James shivers, wondering just how high the other two are planning on raising him tonight. 

Richard feels his shiver.  His hands on James’s wrists tighten ever so slightly, and a decidedly predatory gleam fills his eyes.  “Oh, hell yeah,” he says.  “Just like that, James.  Just let us ...  _fuck.”_

This last spills out almost involuntarily as Jeremy pulls off of James’s groin with a loud sucking pop, leaving a large wet stain on the denim that looks nearly as obscene as it feels.   And it promptly feels even more obscene still, as Jeremy takes a moment to regard his work and then traces his fingers over James’s length in a thoughtful, deliberate way, pressing the damp material firmly into James’s crown.  James can’t help it: he jumps, and swears, his resolve not to try breaking free from Richard’s restraining hands severely tested.  Especially when Jeremy murmurs “God, James.   Yes.  Been wanting to do this all bloody _day_ ,” and lowers his mouth to suck at the fabric again.

Above James, Richard smirks.  “Been wanting to give James’s jeans a blowjob, Jez?” he asks.  “I can relate—I’ve been tempted to do that more than once myself.  Although, to be completely honest with you, more often than not it’s his shirts that make me want to get on my knees.”  Jeremy…whose private opinion of James’s taste in shirts is remarkably similar to his public one...lifts his tongue from James’s jeans long enough to stick it out at Richard.  He adds a rude finger gesture for good measure.  Richard chuckles darkly.  “Anyway, all I’m saying is: I do understand the attraction.  But don’t you think you should be giving at least a little of your attention to James himself?”

Jeremy smiles wolfishly.  “Oh, believe me, that’s _exactly_ what I’m doing,” he says.  He gives the denim a very pointed lick that has James swearing and shifting yet again.  “He loves this, you know.  Loves the tease, loves the mess.  Loves having something in the way.” 

This is true.  A whimper escapes James when he hears Jeremy stating his kinks so bluntly—a whimper that’s girly and high-pitched enough that James might have been seriously tempted to be embarrassed by it, if his heart wasn’t simultaneously filled with the sweet peace of being so well known.  Jeremy’s smile grows even more rapacious.  “Besides.  I had a bet with myself.”

Richard sounds a little breathless.  “And what was that, Jez?”

“I bet myself a hundred pounds that I could get him wet enough to taste him through the fabric.” 

James lets out a hearty, soul-deep groan as his cock pulses out a flood of pre-come, just as if it was listening to Jeremy’s words.  Whether it’s enough for Jeremy to actually taste or not, mixed with the flavor of the cotton and his own saliva, James has no idea.  But it certainly seems as if his cock is trying to do its best.  “Yeah,” Jeremy says gutturally.  “Yeah.  That’s exactly what I wanted.” 

“Fuck,” Richard says.  “Fuck.  James…sorry.  Can’t help myself.  I have to…”  He lets go of James’s hands, gets up off the bed.

For a second, James attempts to gather together enough brain cells to lodge a formal verbal protest.  But Richard doesn’t go far.  He just stands at the foot of the bed and tugs at James’s ankles, yanking him insistently down the mattress until James is resting with his ass right on the edge, feet touching the floor while Richard kneels between his wide-spread legs.  It takes Richard all of two seconds to take over from Jeremy, nuzzling and licking at James’s fly with even more enthusiasm.  He slides his hands under James’s ass for even better leverage. 

From his new, lower vantage point, James raises startled, pleasure shocked-eyes to Jeremy.  He expects Jeremy to protest his place being usurped…but Jeremy just nods tolerantly.  “Don’t blame Richard.  He really did have to.  And I know just how he feels,” he says.  “God, James, you have no idea how maddening it was filming with you all day today, knowing just what day this was, and not being able to do anything about it.  Both of us wanted to touch you so much.  We talked about it between takes—talked about how much we both wanted to take you right there, strip you naked and just have you in front of the crew.  But since I knew we could never do that…I just started thinking about doing this.” He gathers up James’s hands in his larger ones, and for a second James thinks Jeremy is going to take over from Richard, hold him down.  But Jeremy just scoots down the bed and cradles James’s hands to his chest, over his heart.  His voice goes oddly wistful.  “Thought about cornering you in the men’s room and sucking you off through your jeans, getting you wet and wrecked enough that you couldn’t hide it.  That way, everyone would know you belonged to _someone._ Even if they couldn’t know that you belonged to us…”

James melts.  As Richard finally…finally!...undoes James’s fly and slides his hot fingers inside, James pulls his hands free and wraps them around the back of Jeremy’s head.  He pulls Jeremy down and kisses him deeply, hands fisting in what’s left of Jeremy’s hair.  Then he surrenders, letting his head fall back to the bed as his two lovers take him still deeper into pleasure. 

***

Every now and then…and it doesn’t happen often, usually just when James has been on his own for a few too many days, and their press agents have posted just a few too many pictures of his beloveds posing with pretty, adoring, youthful fans…every now and then, James is forced to wonder what would happen if their three suddenly became four.  If Jeremy or Richard…or even James himself…somehow stumbled across that unlikely creature known as The Right Woman or Man.  Someone who completed one of them enough to tempt them into changing their triangle into a square. 

James doesn’t think it would work very well.  Even assuming that such a person would be willing to take all three of them on as a set …something James would have once thought was flatly impossible, but which, judging from their racier fan mail, may not be so impossible at all…their whole dynamic would be changed.  Fitting three people into a bed was hard enough; fitting four was unimaginable.  James thinks the temptation to simply pair off into two couples would be immense.  And since relationships, like everything else in the physical universe, are highly subject to inertia, he thinks that once they paired off, they’d be likely to stay that way.  Instead of being a true foursome, they’d just become two couples who fucked occasionally, if they even still did that.  And since that would mean essentially losing one or the other of the men who absolutely own James’s being, it would utterly break James’s heart.

But…as James can acknowledge, when they’re all back together again and everything is once again right in his world…there really isn’t much danger of that happening.  Triangles are _strong._ They are well able to handle any outside stress, including other sexual and romantic temptations.  And they also happen to be quite…well, pointy.  With several sharp, acute angles that can be used to defend the triangle’s inner space. 

James sees evidence of this sharpness often, every time they have to defend each other and their show to the world.  But it happens much more subtly, too.  They’ve all gotten very good at the bright-eyed “Sorry to interrupt! I’ve just got to borrow my mate here for a moment, show business you know, very important,” pub escape whenever an interested fourth party shows his or her interest a little too much.  It can be tough, defending their relationship in such situations, because they can’t ever let anyone guess just why they’re watching each other’s backs so closely.  But watch they do…and if some poor unfortunate still won’t take the hint, well, there are ways.  More than once, Jeremy has pretended to be drunker than he really was and spilled a drink directly into some overly aggressive person’s lap.  Richard tends to pretend to be drunker than he really is and just spoiling to start a distracting bar fight over something trivial, like favorite football teams or the true size of Catherine Zeta-Jones’s breasts.  And James…well. James can usually boringly lecture his would-be romantic opponents into submission, and if he can’t, there’s always drunkenly stepping on someone’s foot to fall back on.   Just because he generally keeps his sharpness hidden doesn’t mean it isn’t there.

And that’s only right.  Because this thing they have between them?  All that precious space inside their triangle? 

It’s well worth fighting for.

***

James doesn’t know what the clock says, but it feels like he’s been hard for hours.  Some time ago, Richard took pity on him and stripped away his jeans…although Jeremy, rather predictably, insisted on tormenting him for a while through his pants before he’d let Richard pull them off, too.  But now James is finally entirely, blissfully naked, and so are the other two, all three of them lying together with their heads propped comfortably up on pillows.

James is lying on his side with Richard kissing him in front, Jeremy spooned up comfortably to his back.  Jeremy’s cock is currently buried in James’s ass, but he can’t really say they’re fucking, at least not as James generally defines the word; neither one is moving his hips at all.  They haven’t for quite some time.  Still, the connection between them is electric.  And every time one of them makes a subtler move—James shifting slightly so he can better drink in all the sweet complexities of Richard’s mouth, Jeremy kissing James’s shoulder or stroking a hand down his thigh—the slight motion causes Jeremy to rock into James even more deeply, sending a dark wave of pleasure thrumming through James’s entire body, like a single plucked string vibrating the entire sound box of a violin.  It is slow, and tender, and more than a little bit frustrating.

James is in absolute heaven.

He lets his hand slip down to Richard’s groin.  He’s completely unsurprised by the painful hardness he finds there, or the way that Richard finally breaks away from his mouth, shuddering softly.  “James,” he whispers, fighting for breath.  “Not going to last much longer.”

“Then don’t,” Jeremy answers.  James feels the older man’s throaty rumble just as much as he hears it, vibrating from Jeremy’s chest into his back.  He also feels/hears Richard’s gasp as Jeremy reaches over James’s hip and joins him in stroking Richard’s cock, his large hand covering James’s.  “Don’t try to last,” Jeremy tells Richard.  “Just come.  Come all over us.  Mess us up.”

Richard’s head rolls back.  For a second James thinks he’s going to follow directions right then and there, climax from Jeremy’s darkly whispered words even more than from the touch of their hands.  James’s head rolls back too, his back arching into Jeremy as he closes his eyes, already anticipating the hot spill of Richard’s orgasm against his skin.   But Richard takes a deep breath, manages to hold on somehow…and the next thing James feels is Richard’s hand, stilling both his fingers and Jeremy’s.  “No,” he says softly.  “This is James’s night, Jez.  He was the last to join our threesome, so he gets to be the first to come on our anniversary.  Or if he doesn’t want that, he should at least decide how we do it.”  Startled, James opens his eyes.  Richard is looking down at him, panting softly with his eyes shiny-bright from arousal, but calm.  “What do you want, James? Do you want me to mess you up like Jezza said?  Or…”

The answer spills from James’s lips with absolutely no intervention at all from his brain. “In my mouth.”  His brain, once it hears the words, agrees instantly; he hasn’t had Richard’s cock in his mouth all night, and he suddenly discovers that he’s ravenous for it.  Jeremy let him suck his for a few minutes earlier on, while Richard was busily tormenting him, which was wonderful.  But Richard’s cock fits James’s mouth in an entirely different way, and James is desperately hungry for that, mouth already watering as he imagines the different textures and tastes.  He gives Richard his very best attempt at puppy-dog eyes.  “Now?”

“Fuck.  Yes.  Now.”

The bed creaks and groans alarmingly as they shift around. Jeremy groans a bit too, when his cock temporarily slips out of James’s ass.  Still, it’s worth it.  James settles on his hands and knees and Jeremy instantly moves in behind him, sliding home and beginning to fuck him in earnest, using a harsh pounding rhythm that quickly has James seeing stars.  He expects Richard, now standing on the carpet with his ridiculously erect cock hovering near James’s lips, to slam into his mouth just as forcefully, and the thought of being so violently used between them makes his own cock jerk up hard.  But Richard hesitates, bends down awkwardly to kiss him, and then simply looks at James for a moment, cradling his face in both hands.  “Love you,” he says quietly.  “Want you so much.”

“Want _you_ ,” James mumbles blearily, and laughs.  Richard is so close, and James needs him in his mouth so much, but with Jeremy so firmly holding his hips he can’t move enough to reach.  He tries anyway, stretching his neck like a particularly awkward turtle, and when he fails he laughs again.  _Two perfect cocks,_ he thinks.  _One in front, one behind.  And I need them both equally._ “Bilateral symmetry,” he says aloud.

Richard is understandably confused.  “What was that?” he asks.  But Jeremy finally loosens his hold a little, enough that James can surge forward that last little bit he needs, and he does his best to engulf Richard’s cock in one swift move.  He sets up a quick, bobbing slide, hoping that Richard will get take the hint and just start fucking him already, match the rhythm Jeremy is already using to so satisfactorily punish his ass.  Fortunately, Richard does.  And soon all three men are groaning in unison, James so close to coming he almost doesn’t feel Richard’s left hand pulling harshly at his hair. 

But even through all the roughness, all the desperation, the tenderness between them remains.  Richard twists and leans forward, reaching down with his free hand so he can lightly brush it over James’s fingers.  Jeremy leans forward too, resting some of his weight on James’s back and using one of his freakishly long arms to reach James’s other hand and cover it with his.  And so, when Richard gives James a quick break for breath and James looks down, that’s what he sees: both of his hands being touched by his lovers, keeping all three of them connected, all three of them safe.  Bilateral symmetry.

He says it one more time, then sucks Richard in deep and explodes.

***

"So what were you muttering back there, mate?”

Is it possible, James wonders, for a man to feel so much pleasure that his brain literally melts? Leaving him incapable of practicing long-mastered skills like walking or talking? James certainly doesn’t want to attempt the walking part now.  Jeremy has settled against the headboard and pulled James against his chest, wrapping him up in comfort and love; James feels so restful and at ease that he has no desire to move, not now or ever again.  As far as the talking went, well.  While James can dimly remember learning the English language, even earning a living by speaking it on TV, at the moment it seems like a childhood trick roughly on the par with learning to throw his yoyo into a perfect sleep, i.e.  knowledge acquired far too many years ago to still be accessible.  For Richard, though, he makes the effort.  “Muuuuterin’?”

“I think we broke him,” Jeremy proclaims.  “Give him ten minutes, Richard.  If he hasn’t managed a complete sentence by then, we’ll take him down to A&E.  Get the good doctors to unscrew his head, figure out just what we shook loose.”

“’astaaard,” James slurs cheerfully, snuggling more deeply into Jeremy’s broad chest.

Richard snickers.  “Yes, James,” he says.  “Muttering, just like that…except you were saying something different.  You know, right before I…err…made it so you couldn’t talk at all.  Sounded like ‘bi-sexual something or other.’”  He pokes James’s ribs playfully.  “You got something you need to tell us, mate?”

James is tempted to go for another slurred insult, or even better, to close his eyes and go to sleep.  But the question clearly catches Jeremy’s interest.  He straightens up a bit, causing James’s head to slide down onto the bonier portion of his ribs, which suddenly makes James’s position a lot less comfortable.  “Bilateral symmetry,” he corrects Richard.  “Yes, I heard him say that, too.  Twice.  Couldn’t figure it out.” He pokes James too, this time in the arm.  “You been surfing the BDSM websites again, James?  Because I have to tell you, if that’s code for some new sort of naughty kink, I certainly haven’t heard of it.”

James groans inwardly.  But both his lovers wanting to know something is too much to resist. Jeremy, especially, has a sense of curiosity that’s like a force of nature, and can never resist poking and prodding at any mystery until it’s completely unraveled.  As briefly as he can, given his sleepy, sated state of mind, James attempts to explain to his lovers just what he’s been thinking about all evening. 

By the time he finishes, Richard is shaking his head.  “So this is what James thinks about when we’re having sex,” he says, eyeing Jeremy woefully.  “We’ve got to be doing something wrong.”

“Nah, nothing wrong,” Jeremy says.  “It’s just James being James.”  He drops a feather light kiss onto the top of James’s head. “And we’re damn, damn lucky that he is.”

“Too right.” Richard kisses the same spot Jeremy had.  “Gotta say, I wasn’t expecting a maths lecture in bed on tonight of all nights, but I have to agree with a lot of what you said.”  He lifts James’s unresisting arm and wiggles under it.  “I especially liked the bit about…whadidyoucallit?  Stability.  Yeah.  And safety, all of us making these sharp points that keep the triangle safe.”  He smiles sleepily.  “That’s us, mate.  The three of us against the world, sharp an’ unbreakable.  Put like that, I have to wonder why more people don’t make triangles, too.”

“Don’t be stupid,” Jeremy answers.  “It’s perfectly obvious why they don’t.”

“Is it?”

“Of course it is.”  Seeing identical looks of bafflement on James’s and Richard’s faces, Jeremy sighs.  Surrendering his hold on James, he grabs his mobile from James’s bedside table, pulling out the built-in stylus.  Instantly the screen lights up with a blank page, ready to be written upon.  Jeremy quickly sketches a small equilateral triangle in the middle of the screen.  “Look,” he says.  “This is what James thinks we are, right?”

 Both of the other men nod, still baffled.  “Right,” Jeremy replies.  “And I agree.  This is what we are.  But can you see how weird that makes us?”

James squints at the screen.  “Errr,” he says.  “No.”

Jeremy huffs. “Most of the world’s triangles don’t look like this, James,” he says.  “If most people tried to do what we’re doing, they’d end up looking like this.  Or like this.  Or like this.”  And he begins filling in the screen with triangles of all shapes and sizes: long skinny tall ones, short stubby ones, and everything in between.  One or two were sort-of balanced isosceles triangles, with two long sides of equal length connected by a third, much shorter side.  But most were decidedly scalene, with sides of widely varying lengths.  Compared to the stable looking equilateral triangle in the middle, these new triangles just seemed…lopsided.  Wrong.  

 _These triangles would never balance in the real world,_ James thinks to himself, a lightbulb going off in his head.  _Subjected to gravity, they’d never be able to rotate or change position.  Two angles would always be on the bottom, the third at the top.  And those angles aren’t equal either; some will always be sharper, the others more obtuse.  Hmm._ Aloud he says, “Ah.  I see.”

Richard sighs.  “This has to be the weirdest post-sex conversation I’ve ever had, even with the two of you,” he says mournfully.  “You two want to explain just what you’re going on about?  Some of us need a little longer to jumpstart our brains after coming that hard, you know.”

James smiles.  He takes the phone from Jeremy and holds it up so Richard can see more easily, tapping the equilateral triangle with his finger.  “The triangle is the strongest shape in nature,” he said.  “But only if all three sides are equal.”

“Oh.”  Understand dawns.  Richard gives Jeremy his sunniest smile.  “Are you actually admitting that James and I are your equals, then, Jez?  Well, well.  Happy anniversary to you, too.”

Jeremy _harrumphs_ in irritation.  “I’ve never thought anything else.”  He takes the mobile from James and drops it back onto the night stand, then clicks off the lamp that lives there too, leaving the three of them in darkness.  “What I’m saying,” he says, deep voice rumbling as he once again draws James into a comfortable hug, “is that the way the three of us fit together is rare.  I mean, really.”  James feels Jeremy shrug grandly with one arm as he reaches the other around James’s back to draw in Richard, too.  “It’s hard enough to imagine even one person on this earth capable of measuring up to me.  And I found two?  That’s bloody miraculous, that is.”

Richard chuckles, a soft low sound made up of absolute delight.  They all wiggle around for a few moments, trying to get comfortable.  And then suddenly everything seems to click, long limbs and shorter limbs and elbows and bellies settling beautifully into place, like the final pieces of jigsaw.  _Yes,_ James thinks sleepily.  _Absolutely miraculous._

He dreams of triangles all night long, and smiles in his sleep.

THE END


End file.
